Page 135 of Ash and Feather

It was hard not to let my eyes be drawn to it all as well. Hard not to wonder, again, about what sort of fire and fury Dravyn had rained down upon this realm during his search for me.

But I couldn’t let my mind wander over such dangerous territory. I just needed to get away from this place and back to a realm where I could think more clearly about everything.

I put more space between myself and Andrel, breathing in as calmly and deeply as I could, drawing my magic to the surface as I exhaled.

“You’re prepared to fully walk away from your entire life?” he called, not moving from where he stood. “Away from your past, your kind, your home? Yoursister?”

My pulse skipped a beat.

My magic didn’t.

I’d made my choice, and the divine power followed through where my aching heart could not, building up the fires around us while simultaneously pulling at my solid form, preparing to unravel it and whisk me away to the heavens.

“How disappointing,” Andrel drawled. “I suppose you are nothing but a stubborn coward in the end.”

I paused my spell casting long enough to fix my gaze on his one last time. “And you are nothing but a foolish little boy who never learned not to play with fire.”

A throwing knife was in his hand before I’d finished speaking.

He flung it with no more warning than this. It spun from his fingers with blazing speed, grazing the sleeve of my coat as I dove out of its path.

As it soared through the air and struck the ground beside me, it left a trail of shadowy purple energy in its wake. That energy carved through my divine fire, devouring the flames with alarming ferocity.

A memory flashed into my mind: One from months ago, when Cillian had first shown me the true weapons they’d been creating for their wars. I still remembered the dark, rotting energy radiating from the anti-divine knife he’d handed me, and the way that energy shriveled up the stone I stabbed with it…

More throwing knives were strapped to Andrel’s leg.

More sharp edges to cut through and extinguish my fires—andme.

I dodged a second throw that came as quickly as the first, leaping backward just as a fresh, warm wind stormed to life around me. Fiery wings exploded from my back to catch that wind, carrying me further toward safety.

I landed lightly on my feet. A whip of embers reformed and floated by my side, awaiting my command. My wings rose and fell with each flutter of wind, feeling surprisingly heavy and formidable against my back—like an extension of me.

I’d finally managed to shape them into something truly magnificent and capable.

I had little time to celebrate, however, as Andrel was closing the space between us with poised, confident steps, his hand resting on the sheath of his knives.

I braced myself, but he didn’t draw a third knife out.

Instead, he stopped a short distance away and inclined his head—a tiny, barely perceptible nod.

A signal.

I rolled aside just as an arrow flew in from somewhere above, from a perch I couldn’t see through the smoke and brightness. It didn’t cut a path through the flames as the knife had, but I remained wary, watching for more projectiles; the arrowhead was almost certainly laced withsomething,whether runes or poison or who knew what else.

While I was frantically trying to spot the person from which the first arrow had flown, a second one streaked in from my left and struck a wing, cutting a clean path through it before impaling itself in the other.

Gritting my teeth, I jerked it out and tossed it aside. As it hit the ground, a stinging pain radiated from the marks it had left behind. A faint, mildly numbing sensation swept from my wings toward my spine, my shoulders, my arms.

Was this the same poison I’d been injected with in Mindoth?

Was my sister behind this attack, too?

I was stronger now. More certain of my magic and where I was going, and surrounded by divine fire that I continued to siphon power from—all things that better shielded me—yet I could still feel the toxin working, itching through my veins, slowly but surely.

More arrows showered down. I dodged some, incinerated others, knocked at least three aside with precise shifts of my wings. All in the span of a few chaotic moments.

But I couldn’t keep this up indefinitely.

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